December 2008
29 posts
Modern Hobo Code →
Via Triumph of Bullshit.
Seeing the Future in NPR’s Custom News Podcast →
National Public Radio has introduced a nifty little feature that lets you create your own custom podcast of NPR content on topics that interest you. Type in Obama or Madonna or whatever, and you can sign up for a stream of NPR clips that match your keywords that can be downloaded to your computer, smartphone, iPod or Zune.
WatchAt Home with John Cleese. What a delightful human being.
“I wonder if Malcolm Gladwell, Thomas Friedman, and Cliff Clavin ever meet to...”
– Merlin Mann
3 tags
On the Crispy on the Outside podcast today we...
List of common misconceptions - Wikipedia →
An earthworm does not become two worms when cut in half. George Washington did not have wooden teeth. (Hat tip John Henke.)
(via substitute)
“Washington’s libertarian activists and think tankers are still trying to...”
– Dave Weigel in Reason
4 tags
Open for questions, but answers not so much
The Obama transition team made a big deal about the “Open For Questions” feature on its Change.gov website. Essentially users could submit questions and fellow citizens would vote those questions up or down using a Digg-like mechanism. The top questions would be answered by the team. Real citizen engagement and direct democratic participation yadda yadda.
Today the team released its...
3 tags
2 tags
The latest episode of In Conversation, my weekly...
Lobbying Is Democracy in Action →
Great column by Robert Samuelson in today’s Post. I couldn’t agree more with his thoughts on special interests. We are the special interests. Must read.
The only way to eliminate lobbying and special interests is to eliminate government. The more powerful government becomes, the more lobbying there will be. So, paradoxically, Obama’s ambitions for more expansive government will...
Crowdsourced accountability project: Progress, but...
UPDATE: I’ve created a Google Group for this project. I hope you’ll join it and help us build this tool.
Last Thursday I asked for help creating a site that would facilitate crowdsourcing the task of prioritizing the 11,000+ projects proposed in the U.S. Conference of Mayors’ $73 billion “Main Street Economic Recovery” stimulus plan. The point of doing this is to...
1 tag
WatchI recently spoke at the Cato Institute on the topic of online government transparency. This is just my presentation. You can see the other panelists’ presentations and the Q&A session here in (ironically closed and proprietary) RealMedia format.
Big bleg: Let's help Obama crowdsource-out the...
The stimulus plan President-Elect Barack Obama has recently described would help jump-start the economy at the same time it renews our country’s vital infrastructure. And the president-elect is serious about making smart investments. Here he is on Meet the Press last Sunday (emphasis mine):
Well, I think we can get a lot of work done fast. When I met with the governors, all of them have...
Congrats to FCC.gov on five years without an...
Congratulations are in order for the FCC, which today celebrates five years since it last updated its online docket search system, ECFS. If you look at the bottom of the main search page, you will see the mark of this amazing feat: “updated 12/11/03”. In internet years that like a century. Kudos!
Yesterday at the Cato Institute panel on online transparency (video forthcoming here) I...
Deep Glamour interviews Joanne McNeil →
My Tomorrow Museum partner Joanne McNeil is interviewed by the culture blog Deep Glamour. Way to go, Jo!
Cato Policy Forum: Just Give Us the Data! →
Friends, I’m speaking tomorrow at the Cato Institute on a lunchtime panel about the prospects and challenges of making more government data available online for the sake of transparency and accountability. I hope you can come by or watch it online. Cheers!
Connecticut Towns: Arm hurt? Cut it off!
The NY Times reports today that towns in Connecticut are shuttering their websites because they’re finding it too costly to comply with a new state transparency law that requires towns with websites to “post minutes from public meetings on the site within seven days of the meeting and must give residents at least 24 hours notice of special meetings through the site.” Seems a bit...
My first puff piece →
A while back a communications grad student asked to interview me for a class project blog that featured the stories of DC professionals. This is the result, and am I glad I’m the only source for the story. (Thanks, Alicia!)
Obama CTO might want to check out D.C.'s CTO
First, Jim Harper would kill me if I didn’t begin this post by mentioning that I’ll be speaking at a Cato Institute lunch panel entitled, “Just Give Us the Data! Prospects for Putting Government Information to Revolutionary New Uses,” on Wednesday, Dec. 10, along with Ed Felten of Princeton and Gary Bass of OMB Watch. RSVP here. That said, I want to talk about CTOs.
A...
New episode of the Crispy on the Outside podcast....
CQ Politics: A Dome Under Lock and Key →
For all its apparent openness, its televised debates and public hearings, Congress is more secretive than its reputation suggests. Closed or restricted access to legislative meetings and records may not be the rule, but such behavior is hardly viewed as an exception anymore.
“A company of programmers produces code. A company of managers produces meetings.”
– Greg Knauss (via merlin, who is on a roll today)
“In my opinion, the problems with tip culture on the web are many, not least the...”
– Merlin Mann, who made a name for himself dispensing the poop he now rails against. The thing is he’s right. 